Another Key Staff Member Departs Epic Games

The past year has seen a steady stream of departures from Gears of War and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games. Head of global marketing Kendall Boyd has taken a position with Microsoft as head of marketing for the Halo franchise.

Well after the massive disappointment that was Gears: Judgment, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone left. Not only was it a bad game, it sold like crap to boot. I guess people really do want a real single player experience, not just a bunch of areas with randomly spawning enemies, and more than a handful of multiplayer maps. And no, I'm not just picking on Microsoft, God of War: Ascension was a big disappointment as well.

It looks like this studio is going downhill fast. Hopefully they can get things together, hire some good talent and get back to making good games. Lately Microsoft has been slim as far as exclusives go and losing a good developer would be a major issue for them. Furthermore, this studio needs to move on from Gears of War. The monotony of making that franchise is likely a contributing factor for so many developers wanting to leave.

While it's common to think that there's something "wrong" when important people start leaving a studio, that's not always the case. Sometimes it's for family reasons, other times simply because they want to try something new. A steady stream of talent like this is possibly coincidence, or it's a domino affect: one person leaves, which gives other people the idea to leave.

Sign of the times... A bunch of core console devs didn't want to make FTP games for China. Is anyone surprised? I predict more departures, less high profile but equally as important from art to engineering.